Press Release Contact: Filipa Mendes, [email protected] Images: downloadable HERE
Matthew Barney: Redoubt 19 May – 25 July 2021
(L-R: Matthew Barney, Redoubt, 2018. Production still. Photo: Hugo Glendinning; Matthew Barney, Cosmic Hunt: MultiCam Virgin, 2019; Electroplated copper and brass plate with liver of sulfur in copper and brass frame; Matthew Barney, Virgins, 2018. Cast and machined brass, and cast and machined copper.; Matthew Barney, Redoubt, 2018. Production still. Photo:Laura Nespola All photos: ©Matthew Barney, courtesy Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels, and Sadie Coles HQ, London.) From 19 May 2021 through 25 July 2021 the Hayward Gallery presents Matthew Barney: Redoubt, an exhibition of the renowned artist and filmmaker’s latest body of work. The exhibition, the artist’s first major museum show in the UK in over a decade, presents a group of monumental sculptures, and more than forty engravings and electroplated copper plates. Also included is the UK premiere of Barney’s new eponymous film, a ‘breathtakingly beautiful’ chronicle that explores the complex relationships between humans, and the natural world. Set in the sublime wintry landscape of Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountain range, the feature-length film intertwines themes of artistic creation in a contemporary reworking of the classical myth of Diana and Actaeon.
Redoubt presents a major new direction in Barney’s practice, and advances his notable shift in materials over the past decade, from the plastic and petroleum jelly of his earlier works to the cast metals that figured prominently in River of Fundament, 2014. With Redoubt, Barney combines traditional casting methods and new digital technologies in an unprecedented way to create artworks of formal and material complexity as well as narrative density. The four large-scale sculptures in the exhibition derive from trees harvested from a burned forest in the Sawtooth Mountains. Formed out of molten copper and brass, the unique casts incorporate enlarged militarised elements, giving the sculptures a hybridised aesthetic that is both imposing and intricate.
The exhibition also includes engravings on copper plate that Barney made during the filming of Redoubt as well as a series of electroplated copper reliefs that feature imagery from the film, such as the landscape of the Sawtooth Mountains or a wolf among the trees. The electroplates were made using a technique that Barney developed during production of the film, which he then refined and expanded in the studio. By altering the conditions in the electroplating tank—including current, heat, and chemical concentrations—the artist produced unique variations on each image. The engravings also feature elaborate frames and armatures, making them sculptural works in their own rights. These are presented alongside a number of additional free-standing cast sculptures, completing the link between the filmic narrative and the gallery-based installations.
Redoubt was filmed over months in Idaho’s rugged Sawtooth Mountains and continues Barney’s long standing preoccupation with landscape as both a setting and subject in his films. By layering classical, cosmological, and American myths about humanity’s place in the natural world as well as political currents at play, Redoubt weaves a lyrical and universal narrative. Like most of Barney’s previous films, the film is without dialogue; but in a marked shift, Barney has incorporated dance into the narrative of the film, allowing the characters to communicate choreographically. Eleanor Bauer, who also worked with Barney on River of Fundament, both performed in and choreographed Redoubt, in collaboration with K. J. Holmes, Sandra Lamouche, and Laura Stokes. All of the dance passages were filmed on location, emphasising the relationship between site and movement..
Structured as a series of six hunts that unfold over seven days and nights, Redoubt loosely adapts the myth of Diana, goddess of the hunt, and Actaeon, a hunter who accidentally trespasses on her and is punished. The Diana of Redoubt (Anette Wachter) is both the protector of the natural world and a predator in it—a present-day sharpshooter in the frigid Idaho wilderness. Accompanied by her attendants, the Calling Virgin (Eleanor Bauer) and the Tracking Virgin (Laura Stokes), Diana traverses the mountainous terrain in pursuit of the elusive wolf. The Engraver (Matthew Barney) happens upon the hunting outfit in the forest and begins stalking the trio, furtively documenting their actions in a series of copper engravings. He brings his plates to a remote trailer housing a rudimentary laboratory, where the Electroplater (K. J. Holmes) subjects them to an electrochemical transformation. In a pivotal scene near the end of the film, the Engraver encounters a sixth character, the Hoop Dancer (Sandra Lamouche, Bigstone Cree Nation), who rehearses a Native American dance in a nearby town. Her complex movement sequence unites her with the other characters across time and space, as the film progresses to a climactic moment of cosmic and terrestrial reversal.
Barney is among the most ambitious and provocative artists of our time, known for epic projects such as the CREMASTER Cycle (1994–2002). Both Redoubt and its related publication—which features essays by leading scholars of art history, dance theory, and environmental studies—speak to the artist’s expansive interests.
Dr Cliff Lauson, Senior Curator at the Hayward Gallery, says: “Matthew Barney’s Redoubt is a constellation of rich characters and sublime places created with technical precision and prowess. This ambitious exhibition will be presented across both of the Hayward Gallery’s floors, centering around the epic film. It will be a spectacular yet contemplative experience that will uniquely reveal itself through the lenses of different media and forms of representation.”
Ralph Rugoff, Director at the Hayward Gallery, says: “Matthew Barney has created a significant new chapter in his artistic evolution with the challenging and thoughtful works in this exhibition. Focusing on our relationship with the natural world and a related range of timely and highly-charged issues, Redoubt reveals an artist in the midst of expanding his artistic language with exhilarating ingenuity whilst forging an urgent vision about some of the most pressing matters of our time.”
The related catalogue, which will be available at the Hayward Gallery Shop, is published by Yale University Art Gallery and distributed by Yale University Press. It is a comprehensive representation of the project, using hundreds of stills and documentary photographs to track the film’s narrative. The publication also features lush images of the engravings, electroplated copper plates, and tree sculptures related to the project, as well as other images that inspired Redoubt.
Matthew Barney: Redoubt was originally organised by the Yale University Art Gallery. The Hayward Gallery exhibition is curated by Senior Curator Dr Cliff Lauson, with Assistant Curator Katie Guggenheim and Curatorial Assistant Alyssa Bacon.
Listings information:
Matthew Barney: Redoubt 19 May – 25 July 2021 The Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX Prices: from £12 (also includes entry to lower galleries Igshaan Adams: Kicking Dust) Concessions available & Southbank Centre Members go free. Link to Matthew Barney: Redoubt web page HERE
The Hayward Gallery new opening times: 11am – 7pm, Wednesday - Saturday 10am – 6pm, Sunday Closed Monday and Tuesday
Further information: www.southbankcentre.co.uk / [email protected]
Online pre-booking is essential for everyone, including Southbank Centre Members and members of the press. ID may be requested on arrival for discounted tickets.
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Catalogue:
The related catalogue, which will be available at the Hayward Gallery Shop, is published by Yale University Art Gallery and distributed by Yale University Press. It is a comprehensive representation of the project, using hundreds of stills and documentary photographs to track the film’s narrative. The publication also features lush images of the engravings, electroplated copper plates, and tree sculptures related to the project, as well as other images that inspired Redoubt.
The volume is organised into six chapters mirroring the “hunt” structure of the film. Included are an introduction, a historical essay originally published in National Geographic in 1899 that discusses the relationship among forests, forest fires, and regrowth, and six essays—some lyrical, others more objective—that approach Redoubt through the disciplinary lenses of art history, ecology, and dance theory. Taking a cue from Redoubt’s mountainous setting, the overall design of the book evokes a field guide.
Matthew Barney: Redoubt Yale University Art Gallery / Yale University Press 368 pages 6 1/2 × 9 5/8 inches 414 colour and 8 black-and-white illustrations, including 2 gatefolds Distributed by Yale University Press, 2019 Paperback, ISBN 978-0-300-24327-7 Price £40; Members £32
Complimentary press tickets:
Journalists planning to cover the exhibition will need to contact the Southbank Centre press office to arrange a ticket in advance.
NOTES TO EDITORS
About Matthew Barney Matthew Barney was born in San Francisco in 1967 and lives and works in New York. Exhibitions include: Haus der Kunst, Munich; The Museum of Old and New Art, Tasmania, Australia; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; Museum for Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan; Leeum Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Serpentine Gallery, London; Kunsthalle Vienna, and Schaulager/Laurenz Foundation, Basel, Switzerland. Barney has received numerous awards including the Aperto prize at the 1993 Venice Biennale; the Hugo Boss Award in 1996; the 2007 Kaiser Ring Award in Goslar, Germany; and the San Francisco International Film Festival’s Persistence of Vision Award in 2011.
About the Hayward Gallery The Hayward Gallery, part of the Southbank Centre, has a long history of presenting work by the world's most adventurous and innovative artists including major solo shows by both emerging and established artists and dynamic group exhibitions. They include those by Bridget Riley, Martin Creed, Antony Gormley, Tracey Emin, Andy Warhol, Ed Ruscha, Jeremy Deller, Anish Kapoor, René Magritte, Francis Bacon and David Shrigley, as well as influential group exhibitions such as Africa Remix, Light Show, Psycho Buildings and Space Shifters. Opened by Her Majesty, The Queen in July 1968, the gallery is one of the few remaining buildings of its style. The Brutalist building was designed by a group of young architects, including Dennis Crompton, Warren Chalk and Ron Herron and is named after Sir Isaac Hayward, a former leader of the London County Council.
About the Southbank Centre The Southbank Centre is the UK’s largest arts centre and one of the UK's top five visitor attractions, occupying a prominent riverside location that sits in the midst of London’s most vibrant cultural quarter on the South Bank of the Thames. We exist to present great cultural experiences that bring people together and we achieve this by providing the space for artists to create and present their best work and by creating a place where as many people as possible can come together to experience bold, unusual and eye-opening work. We want to take people out of the everyday, every day.
The site has an extraordinary creative and architectural history stretching back to the 1951 Festival of Britain. The Southbank Centre is made up of the Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room and Hayward Gallery as well as being home to the National Poetry Library and the Arts Council Collection. It is also home to four Resident Orchestras (London Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, London Sinfonietta and Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment) and four Associate Orchestras (Aurora Orchestra, BBC Concert Orchestra, Chineke! Orchestra and National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain).